


Not Like That

by JediMordsith



Series: Captains of Our Own Souls [1]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Mara finds a unique way to tell Palpatine and C'baoth to kriff off, Smut, The Thrawn Triolgy, The most canon compliant thing I've written so far
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-26
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-09-11 21:53:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9035399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JediMordsith/pseuds/JediMordsith
Summary: “Do you know how you spit in the face of a man who craves power and control, Jedi?” “You refuse to give it to him.” “That's just general defiance,” she shook her head. “If you truly want to make a point, you give what they want to someone else – ideally the person they most hate, or consider the farthest beneath them.” Luke grimaced. “In this case, me.” OR: Luke and Mara smut en route to Wayland to spite Palpatine's echo and Mad Jedi Master C'baoth.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This story is entirely the fault of celinamarniss, her story Frisson, and the comments thereafter. Dedicated to celinamarniss and fragipani for being so encouraging that I write it, even though it's taken forever.

**From Timothy Zahn's _The Last Command:_**

“ _I want to kill your brother.”_

“ _Do you?” Organa Solo asked. “Do you really?”_

_Mara smiled thinly. “Bring him here and I'll prove it.”_

_Organa Solo studied her face, and Mara could feel the ten_ _u_ _ous touch of her rudimentary Jedi senses as well. “From what Luke's told me, it sounds like you've already had several chances to kill him,” Organa Solo pointed out. “You didn't take them.”_

“ _It wasn't from lack of intent,” Mara said. But it was a thought that had been gnawing at her as well. “I just keep getting into situations where I need him alive. But that'll change.”_

“ _Perhaps,” Organa Solo said, her eyes still moving across Mara's face. “Or perhaps it's not really you who wants him dead.”_

_Mara frowned. “What that supposed to mean?”_

_Organa Solo's gaze drifted away from Mara to the window, and Mara could feel a tightening of the other woman's sense. “I was at Endor a couple of months ago,” she said._

_An icy sensation crawled up Mara's spine. She'd been at Endor, too, taken there to face Grand Admiral Thrawn… and she remembered what the space around the world of the Emperor's death had felt like. “And?” she prompted. Even to herself, her voice sounded strained._

_Organa Solo heard it, too. “You know what I'm talking about, don't you?” she asked, her eyes still on the lights of the Imperial City. “There's some shadow of the Emperor's presence still there. Some of that final surge of hatred and anger. Like a – I don't know what.”_

“ _Like an emotional bloodstain,” Mara said quietly, the image springing spontaneously and vividly into her mind. “Marking the spot where he died.”_

_She looked at Organa Solo, to find the other woman's eyes on her. “Yes,” Organa Solo said. “That's exactly what it was like.”_

_Mara took a deep breath, forcing the black chill from her mind. “So what does that have to do with me.”_

_Organa Solo studied her. “I think you know.”_

\- -

**Aboard the _Millennium Falcon_ , en route to Wayland, 9 ABY **

_YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER._

_No. Not like that. My decision. My reasons._ She repeated the mantra she'd been answering that Force-damned echo with since Organa Solo had opened her eyes to what it really was, and let her head fall to the side as her eyes slid shut.

The metal wall of the cargo bay was cool against the florid bruise hidden just above the hairline at Mara's temple. She'd stopped slamming her head against the bulkhead an hour ago (it had long since stopped quieting the Emperor's vicious echo), but her head still throbbed. She told herself it was leftover from the recent neural reconstruction. Or maybe lack of sleep. Or the remnants of the Command pounding at her skull, demanding that she stop trying to sublimate it and just obey.

Anything to avoid acknowledging that her suffering head was just an extension of the cruel ache in her heart.

“Mara?”

She didn't raise her head or open her eyes. “Go away, Skywalker.”

“You skipped dinner.”

“I can't eat like this.”

He sighed, heavy with regret and frustration. “I wish you'd let me help.”

“Then you should have let me kill C'baoth on Jomark,” she snapped, her voice brittle. “I could be on the _Wild Karrde_ right now, camped out next to an Ysalimiri in peace and quiet.” Or still sitting in house arrest on Coruscant, bored out of her skull, waiting for Bremen and company to show up again with the next round of questions she refused to answer.

“I wouldn't have asked you to come if we could have done it without you,” Luke apologized quietly.

“Just _go away_ and let me suffer in peace, Jedi.”

He hesitated, his reluctance a weight between them for a long moment before he did as she asked.

\- -

Some time later, chilled and starting to cramp from her balled up position in the corner of the unheated cargo bay – generally the farthest she could get from Skywalker within the confines of the ship – Mara pushed herself to her feet and made her way stiffly toward the tiny bunk room she'd been assigned. Dropping her jacket on the bunk, she stepped into the miniscule attached fresher and splashed cold water on her face. Patting her skin dry, she stopped at stared at herself in the mirrored surface above the sink. Her usually creamy skin was porcelain pale from her confinement to the med center, and dark smudges under her eyes testified to how long it had been since she'd been able to snatch more than a few hours' sleep before violent nightmares jolted her awake, leaving further rest impossible. Her hair was scraped back in a utilitarian braid and, though the jumpsuit masked it, she was too thin. Too much stress, too long spent on the run from Thrawn, too many days spent too nauseous from the shrieking in her head to keep anything down.

She'd been beautiful, once, she reflected. Turned the head of every Moff and Grand Admiral in Palpatine's Court. She still remembered the glee when the Emperor had started receiving requests to be granted her favors. She'd been fourteen. Funny – she couldn't remember now if the glee had been his or hers. Maybe she'd never known the difference.

Mara's hands fisted around the towel she held, twisting violently. _A pawn. I was nothing but a pawn to him._ She'd given him everything, and in return he'd flung her out into the universe alone and broken when he died at Endor. Her Master, who planned in fastidious detail for every contingency, hadn't held her worth so much as a jot of consideration in his plans for the worst case scenario.

She'd survived – it's what he'd trained her to do, after all. But for what? So that she could lose the battle to the voice in her head and sliced in half by Skywalker's lightsaber as she tried to kill him? To get executed because she'd snapped and actually succeeded in murdering him? So that C'baoth could make good on his threats, swatting aside her meager defenses with his own rampant Force power, devouring what was left of her mind and subjugating her body to his egomaniacal madness?

 _No. Not like that._ Determination rose in her breast, fierce and hot. She was _Mara Jade_ . She made her own decisions. Did things for her _own_ reasons. She would spit in their wrinkled, crazed faces straight to her last breath.

Mara blinked. Looked again at her reflection, with a new eye this time. Dropping the towel, she returned to her room and dug a brush from her hastily packed bag. Releasing her hair from it's strict braid, she brushed it until it shone and hung in long, soft waves down her back. There was nothing to be done about her complexion or the dark circles under her eyes – she'd brought no cosmetics – but she peeled off the rumpled ship suit she'd been wearing and pulled on a pair of lace boyshorts and a soft sleeping shift that barely reached mid-thigh instead. She knew the midnight blue silk would set off her hair and eyes, even in her current condition. The set had been a splurge, purchased before the start of the Thrawn mess simply for the pleasure of having a single, private indulgence in her otherwise strictly pragmatic wardrobe. Now, it was the best she could do and she hoped it would be enough.

Reaching out with her limited Force senses, she did a quick recon. Skywalker was in the bunk room beside hers, obviously trying to dampen his Force presence in a futile effort not to exacerbate her torment. The rest of their little raiding party was forward in the ship; the somnolent ripples around Solo's presence suggested he was asleep. Calrissian and the wookie gave off easy, mildly focused vibes that suggested they were engaged in something together. A game, maybe? Dejarik. Sabacc. Mara didn't care to know as long as they stayed put.

Slipping into the empty corridor, she took a few steps down to the next door. She didn't press the annunciator, just let herself in. Farmboy that he was, Skywalker naturally hadn't thought to lock the door – not that the ancient locks in this bucket of bolts would have taken her more than a moment to bypass. He was laying on his bunk, clad only in worn, faded sleep pants that looked like they might have been from his Rebel days, one arm thrown carelessly over his head, the other rubbing absently at his ribs.

He sat up quickly when she entered, and even in the dim lighting she could see his eyes blow wide at the sight of her attire. He pressed his knees together and rested his forearms on them in a subtle move she guessed was meant to hide his body's instinctive reaction to her appearance. Maybe she hadn't lost as much of her allure as she'd thought. Or maybe he was an innocent Jedi, easier to impress than most. It didn't matter.

“Mara.”

“Did you mean what you said earlier? About wanting to help?”

“Yes.” The answer was immediate, and Luke's eyes locked on her face, searching. Delicate tendrils of curiosity stretched toward her, feathering across her sense as he instinctively – unwittingly – reached to the Force for insight, understanding.

_YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER._

He was brushing closely enough against her mind that they both flinched when the Emperor's voice battered her psyche again. Mara felt Luke withdraw, guiltily, as if just realizing what he'd done and guessing he might have inadvertently triggered the painful assault.

Mara had been expecting the voice, though, and recovered quickly. “Take off your clothes,” she ordered, firmly. “Everything.”

He blinked at her, then flushed slightly and shifted uncomfortably. “I don't see how that's going to help,” he said, hesitantly.

“I served the Emperor faithfully my whole life and this -,” she motioned at her head, “is what I got to show for it. Now C'baoth wants me under his heel.” Her eyes flashed. “I'm _no one's_ slave, Skywalker. _I_ decide what I'm going to do, with – and for – whom.”

“I know.” Luke's voice was steady, reassuring now.

“Do you know how you spit in the face of a man who craves power and control, Jedi?”

“You refuse to give it to him.”

His eyes unfocused for a moment, and Mara wondered if there was a memory there, attached to that thought. Probably better that she didn't know.

“That's just general defiance,” she shook her head. “If you truly want to make a point, you give the power they want to someone else – ideally the person they most hate, or consider the farthest beneath them.”

Luke grimaced. “In this case, me.”

“Yes.” Mara crossed the small distance between them purposefully and very slowly, very deliberately, knelt in front of the Jedi.

His eyes went wide again, in alarm this time, and he jerked upright, pulling back from her. “I don't want to control you, Mara,” he protested, open hands going out at his side in a motion that was somewhere between defensiveness and pleading.

“I know.” Mara laid her palms flat on his legs, just above the knees, and slid them languorously up over his thighs. The muscles bunched under her touch as his tension doubled. “That's why I'm giving it to _you_.”

Reaching her goal, Jade stroked a thumb across the unmistakable bulge at the front of his pants. Luke jumped, hands darting forward to close over her wrists, pull them out and away. She stayed resolutely where she was, kneeling up, her chest a hairsbreadth from his knees, eyes locked on his in challenge.

She felt Luke's azure eyes on her, felt the Force eddy against her again as he weighed that idea. Bracing herself against the inherent discomfort of vulnerability, Mara lowered her natural shields enough to give him the validation he was looking for.

Skywalker licked his lips, his entire body flushed now. She didn't need the Force to see it was as much from arousal as from the perceived awkwardness of this situation.

“You don't want me,” he asserted.

“No, but I want to kriff you.” Mara quirked an eyebrow. “Don't tell me you haven't done this before?”

Luke shook his head. “Of course I have. I used to. It's just that Jedi don't really…”

She cut him off. “Jedi don't get _attached_. This isn't about attachments.”

“Will it hurt you?”

She frowned. “What?”

Still holding her wrists, Luke gestured toward her head. “His voice, it hurts you. Will it… get worse, if you do this? If _we_ do this?”

Mara stared at his impossibly earnest face for a moment, trying to process the genuine concern there. When was the last time anyone other than Talon and his people had been worried about _her_? Given even the slightest thought to her safety or comfort? It was disconcerting to suddenly be the focus of such care, and she shook it off.

“There's no way to know,” she confessed, honestly. “But if I let that stop me, I'm just giving in to his control again – and I _won't_ , Skywalker. I'm not his any more.”

He released her, one hand coming to cup her cheek, his thumb stroking across her cheekbone, eyes fixed on hers. Mara watched his expression shift from concern to… awe? Wonder?

“How could anyone want to cage you, Jade? All that heat – you'd burn them alive.”

Mara felt a surge of pride at the compliment. Instantly horrified at herself for the weakness, she smothered it, redirecting the whole of her attention back to her goal.

Taking the fact that he was no longer physically restraining her from her goal as consent, she hooked her index fingers into the waistband of his pants and the shorts underneath. Luke lifted his hips from the bed, letting her peel the clothing off of him and toss it aside. He offered no resistance when she nudged his knees apart so she could kneel closer, one hand stroking easily from his calf to hip and back down in long, fluid strokes. She wrapped the fingers of her other hand around the erection straining toward his belly and felt him shudder.

He reached for her hair, then faltered. “Can I touch you?” His voice was low and rough, like he might groan in pain if she refused him.

She actually considered it for a heartbeat, solely for the pleasure of feeling in control again after so long spent huddled in the oubliette of subjugation to stronger powers – Palpatine's echo, Thrawn, C'baoth.

In the end, she didn't dare. She needed this, need him to let her do this. The value of the end goal far outweighed that momentary pleasure, however sweet it might have been. So she nodded – and found that she hadn't sacrificed her pleasure at all. The uneven breath he let out, the reverent way his fingertips ghosted across her red-gold locks where they fell over her shoulder, made her heart swell with satisfaction. The Jedi had been denying his body's needs a long while, she guessed, and she had been trained in the carnal arts by the best courtesans in the Imperial Court. There was no question who had the advantage here.

Her hair fell in satin wave over Luke's bare skin and the silk of her top tickled the sensitive skin of his inner thigh as she leaned forward and licked across the velvety tip of his manhood. His hand fisted in her hair, and she felt him suppress a moan as his hips instinctively shifted up, seeking more.

Mara recognized the habitual muting of vocal responsiveness that was so common in soldiers. Years of hurried, furtive assignations in bases and ships known for conspicuously thin walls taught a man to internalize his gratification. That would be to their benefit now; saving the Solo twins had put the wookie in her corner – Solo and Calrissian would probably shoot on sight if they burst in to this.

Unhurried now that things were solidly in her favor, Mara took her time teasing the Jedi with skillful fingers and flirty tongue until he throbbed under her touch, the hand not buried in her hair fisting the blankets of his bunk in a desperate effort to stay quiet and retain some small measure of control.

“ _Mara,_ ” he entreated, finally. “ _Please._ ” Then he gasped, body arching back as she darted her head forward, relaxing her throat to engulf his full, generous length into the wet heat of her mouth. Sucking in earnest now, she kept her hands busy as well, squeezing, stroking, kneading. He rocked with her movements, thrusting shallowly as she sucked him off, both his hands burrowed in her soft hair, alternately running through the long waves and clenching tight when he grazed too close to the edges of his control.

The former Hand stared up, watching the nuances of bliss shifting and writ large across Skywalker's expressive face as she worked him over.

 _Are you seeing this, you Sith bastard?_ She thought vindictively at the Emperor's ghost. She willed whatever remained of him in that sliver of his soul he'd left embedded inside of her to relay every last shiver, gasp, and muffled moan in vibrant color and sound to where Palpatine rotted in a Sith hell somewhere. Let herself imagine in vicious delight the manifold suffering he'd endure watching his precious Hand give his enemy the best, most intimate benefits of the training he'd forced on her.

“Jade.”

She was pulled from her thoughts by her name on Luke's lips. It was a strangled whisper, and a warning.

Exhilarated by her power to do this to him – to make the flawlessly calm, ever controlled Jedi heave and shudder at her whim – Mara beneficently granted his release. Pulling back just slightly, she ran the fingernails of her left hand down the outside of his right thigh. Sucking hard on his swollen tip, she pumped his saliva-coated shaft with a firm hand once, twice – and he was gone, head thrown back, eyes screwed shut as he arched into her, filling her mouth with the hot rush of his essence.

Mara swallowed every salty drop, easing off to stroke and nibble lightly as he corkscrewed slowly down from his high. She let go when he sagged back, falling flat on his bunk, demolished by the force of his orgasm.

In the wake of Luke's enthusiastic response to her touch, Mara found herself re-centered, the debilitating sense of helplessness and failure that had haunted her since Myrkr evicted – at least for the moment – from her soul. Unexpected gratitude and affection for the Jedi welled in her, and she pressed a soft kiss to his knee before locking the feelings up inside her and pushing to her feet. She wrapped the box hiding those emotions in careful shields. She'd need them to ration out, later, as armor against the exhaustion and despair that were sure to find their way back once she set foot on Wayland; they'd been companions far too long to leave her with anything more than a brief respite from their company, now.

Moving to go, she heard Luke move behind her.

“Wait.” He rolled to lay on his side, drawing his feet up on the bed and unsteadily propping himself up on his left elbow. “What about you?”

Mara's brow wrinkled. “What about me?”

He gave her a confused look, as if maybe he wasn't sure what part of his question had been unclear. “You didn't get any pleasure.”

She returned the baffled expression. “My pleasure isn't necessary.”

The courtesans she'd trained under in her youth had been explicitly clear about that point; if her partner was satisfied, then she had done well. That knowledge – and that alone – was her reward for succeeding. Her own pleasure, if there was any to be had, was incidental and never to be allowed to distract her from ensuring his.

She wasn't sure if she'd accidentally left that thought above her shields – she'd dropped them more than she should have, basking in the bliss he'd been vigorously projecting – or if it was simply the statement that startled him. Either way, he levered himself back to a sitting position, clearly appalled.

“It is to me.”

“Why?”

He sat for a moment, floundering for an answer, before his expression ticked over into a distinctly calculating look. Mara made a mental note never to let the man play sabacc – he was far too easy to read. But when he opened his mouth, the words that came out reminded her that he didn't particularly need subterfuge. For all the infuriating innocence he could embody sometimes, the man had a devious streak a parsec wide when it served his purposes.

“Power and control,” he said, bright eyes boring into hers in challenge as he fed her own words back to her. “If you truly want to make a point, you give what they want to someone else.”

Mara felt a shiver run down her spine, and her temperature spiked. He had a point. It was one thing to kneel and serve the Jedi, satiating _his_ desires, spitting in C'baoth's face by elevating him to exactly the position the Mad Master wished to hold. It would another level of spite entirely to lay down on that bed and willingly let the man the Emperor had ordered – _kept ordering_ – her to kill have his way with her naked and defenseless body.

Maybe the kernel of Palpatine's presence in her mind actually pulsed with revulsion and rage; maybe she simply imagined it. It made no difference – the sensation sealed her course.

“I don't want you in my head,” she stated emphatically, sliding the thin straps of the shift off her shoulders and letting it drop to the floor.

“I won't hurt you, Jade,” Skywalker promised, soft and sincere.

Mara said nothing, but shimmied out of the lacy shorts. She spared a thought to be thankful that the fabric was too dark to show they were already soaked through; she'd never been aroused by pleasuring someone before, and didn't want to have to think about why she was now. She made herself move toward Luke, and he scooted over, giving her room. She knelt uncertainly on the edge of the bunk. As a rule, she didn't take lovers; nor did she knowingly give anyone else the upper hand. She suddenly realized she had no idea what she was supposed to do now.

“Lay down.” His hand was warm on her hip, the skin rough from a lifetime of work in harsh conditions but gentle as he coaxed her down onto her back.

Mara shifted, automatically falling into an old relaxation technique, intentionally tightening and releasing muscle groups in turn, starting at her toes and working upward. Her body responded of its own volition when Luke stretched out beside her, propped up on one arm, close enough that the heat of his body soaked into her, but not quite touching. His rested a hand on her stomach, almost as if testing to see if she'd shy away. When she didn't, he slid his fingertips up over her sternum, the backs of his fingers lightly brushing the swell of a breast before he reversed direction, languidly sliding his touch back down, circling around a hip bone and back up.

Mara closed her eyes and cautiously let herself just _feel_. True to his word, Luke's Force sense came no closer than the edges of hers; she guessed he was tracking the sparks and splashes of color across her presence with the same regard that his eyes followed the goosebumps that rose on her skin, the pearling of her nipples when he got the pressure just right. Now and then he found and traced a scar on her on her otherwise smooth skin; aside from those little detours, he seemed intent on setting every nerve ending in her body alight. When he traced a fingertip up her breast and around her aureola, she caught her breath at the exquisite sensation.

“So beautiful,” he murmured, leaning over her.

Mara gasped when he latched onto a nipple, sucking firmly, his hand coasting down to ghost between her legs. He gave a low hum of approval to find her already wet. Mara squirmed and bit back a whimper when his fingers dipped inside her folds. He released her nipple with a wet smack and leaned further over to apply his attentions to the other. Mara could feel him getting hard again, his arousal pressing into her thigh. Conscious even now of the need not to be overheard, Mara clamped a hand over her mouth to muffle her cry and bucked up and into his hand when he worked a single finger into her core.

Her other hand caught his shoulder, squeezing hard as he nipped lightly at her breasts, promptly soothing each little love bite with flicks of his tongue and soft, sucking kisses. He added another finger between her legs, thrusting steadily until she was rolling her hips in time with his hand, her breathing thready and uneven as her pleasure spiraled.

Mara had never known intimacy like this. Her entire body vibrated, thrumming like a live wire under the Jedi's caresses. Color exploded and whorled behind her closed eyes, and the world extended no further than the narrow confines of the tiny bunk they shared. Pressure built low in her belly, and the realization of how close she was to reaching that pinnacle of pleasure made her inner muscles clamp down on the fingers inside her.

“Force,” Luke groaned, pulling back just enough to nuzzle into her throat. Mara couldn't hide her small cry of dismay when he pulled away entirely. For a split second, she had the horrified notion that he was going to leave her this way, wound up and unsatisfied, as a demonstration of his power, his control over her.

Relief rushed through her when he pressed a kiss to her shoulder instead and murmured, “turn over.”

Her body responded sluggishly, too leaden with bliss to move quickly, but she managed, rolling onto her front and pressing up on her knees and elbows. Luke's hands framed her hips as he knelt between her legs. One hand slid up to stroke along her spine as he teased her entrance with his hard, hot length.

“Please,” Mara whispered, then flushed scarlet – she'd never _asked_ for a man before.

His answer was to push into her, long and smooth and deep. Mara buried her face in the thin, lumpy pillow to hide the moan that reverberated through her entire body, all the way down until her toes curled with it.

“Sith.” Luke cursed, roughly, and started to move, picking up pace until his hips were slapping hard and fast into hers.

She'd never felt so full, so taken – so _wanted_. Mara felt everything – the cool air of the ship's night cycle against the soles of her feet, the heat of Luke behind her, the sweet friction of him inside her, the teasing brush of the sheets against breasts reddened by this teeth and tongue. She tried to find enough coherence to match his rhythm and had almost succeeded when his hold on her hips adjusted slightly. Nudged her back and up just enough that his next thrust sank him home against the tiny rough patch deep inside her that shattered her world into a sea of stars.

She only vaguely registered Skywalker's climax, inevitably triggered by her own, and the way he slumped over her, gulping for air before sliding out of her and rolling just far enough off to not be on top of her. She was still fragmented and floating on an unparallelled high when she felt him drag the blankets up over her, dropping a light kiss on the back of her neck and as he tucked them up over her shoulders.

Mara struggled to push herself upright, but felt the Jedi's hand against her back, keeping her in place.

“Have to go,” she mumbled, trying to pretend she wasn't much too dizzy still to stand.

“It's all right,” he soothed, quietly. “The others have all gone to bed; sleep it off a little before you go.”

She turned her head enough to open one eye and glare at him suspiciously.

The Jedi just smiled and shrugged one shoulder before settling back comfortably himself, giving her space, and closing his eyes. “Consider it additional proving of your point,” he yawned, sleepily.

Mara prodded the sliver of the Emperor in her head. It had gone cold and still as the grave. She had no doubt it would come back, probably with a vengeance, but – for the moment – it seemed that she had made her point.

Dropping her head back to the pillow, she let herself drift in the warmth and lingering satisfaction of being well-kriffed. For one night amid the constant stress being hunted, the degradation of being a former Imperial at the mercy of the rabble – _Rebels_ – who now occupied what was once the closest thing to 'home' she had, the whole endless struggle that had become her life, Mara rested in a semblance of true peace, certain again, finally, of one thing:

She was Mara Jade and, whatever hell Wayland would bring, she would never be anyone's slave again.


End file.
